


Hold Our Breaths Tonight

by iaminarage



Series: Make Me Happy 'verse [6]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, It won't make sense out of context, Kurt and Blaine's breakup is recent so that does come up, M/M, discussions of homophobia cw, do not read unless you've read through Chapter 23 of Make Me Happy, mentions of past homelessness cw, mild underage drinking cw, shitty parents cw, this is a backstory ficlet for the Kurtbastian fanfic Make Me Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2572571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaminarage/pseuds/iaminarage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt was quiet for a second as he tried to line that up with his memories of that year. Blaine would have flown out to LA with the ring because he wasn’t ready to believe they were done, and then he’d met Zeke only a week or so later. Then he would have packed the ring in his suitcase so that he could return it and, at the same time, brought his new boyfriend home with him for Christmas. Kurt shot his own glance over at Zeke, who was now playing with Brittany’s hair. “That must have been weird for Zeke.”</p>
<p>Blaine winced a bit at that. “You and I haven’t talked much about those months. A lot of things were weird for Zeke then, and I’m not really proud of any of them.”</p>
<p>Or: The Story of how Blaine Anderson’s rebound became the love of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Our Breaths Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Do not read this until after you’ve read Chapter 23 of Make Me Happy, but it takes place in the 2013-2014 school year. You don’t have to read this fic if you don’t want to, but I totally think you should. All of Make Me Happy will still make sense either way.
> 
> The title comes from “[Two Strangers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pEK8llqjlA)” by Kerrigan and Lowdermilk.(People I’m sure you’ve NEVER heard of if you’ve been following along.)
> 
> Thanks to loveinisolation for the beta as always

“Do you want me to stay or go?”

Blaine rolled over to check the clock on his bedside table. It was only 10pm on Friday, so it was a perfectly safe time for Zeke to walk home, but Blaine didn’t really want him to. The dorm beds were really too small for two people, especially given that Zeke was blissfully unaware that he was a giant bed hog, but Blaine liked not waking up alone. When Blaine had shared a bed with Kurt, there had always been a reason. He couldn't help but think back to the last night they spent together, both of them trying to hold on just a little longer to something they knew was over. The novelty of being able to wake up with someone for no reason at all hadn’t worn off. He slept better with Zeke next to him or draped all over him, as was usually the case.

Blaine stopped his thoughts in their tracks when they started to turn to Kurt. Instead, he flipped over to face Zeke. Some emotion that Blaine couldn’t identify passed over Zeke’s face, and Blaine wondered, not for the first time, how well Zeke could read him. Even after two and a half months of, well, whatever this was, Blaine couldn’t read Zeke at all.

“You should stay if you don’t have too much work,” Blaine said, and he reached out to push a curl off of Zeke’s forehead.

Zeke closed his eyes for a moment when Blaine touched him. When he opened them again, he said, “No, most of my big stuff isn’t due until after Thanksgiving.”

“What are you doing for the holidays?” Blaine asked. Zeke and Blaine had made a fair amount of small talk in the last few months, but hadn’t talked about much else. Even that was challenging. Zeke was the quietest person Blaine had ever known. He supposed that wasn’t saying much considering that his friends had always been pretty outgoing, but even compared to normal people Zeke was quiet. Blaine dominated the conversation a lot of the time, and he could never tell if that was okay with Zeke, or if he really wished Blaine would just stop talking.

Zeke shrugged, and for a moment Blaine wondered if that was the whole answer. Finally Zeke spoke. “I’m going back to Sacramento for Thanksgiving with my friend Brandon’s family. But I’m just staying at USC for Christmas.”

Blaine raised an eyebrow at Zeke. He was pretty sure that was weird. People didn’t usually stay at school alone for a month. “Why are you staying here?”

“Brandon’s family used to go to Florida every year to visit his grandparents. They didn’t go last year, and they offered to not go this year, but his grandparents are pretty old, and I can’t really handle the idea that they’d miss time with them on my account. What if it was their last chance, you know?”

That was easily the longest Blaine had ever heard Zeke speak, and at first he was distracted by his surprise at that. Then he realized that he was, again, missing something critical. “Why don’t you just go home for Christmas?” he asked. He was trying to remember if Zeke had ever said anything about his family at all, but Blaine was pretty sure he hadn’t.

Zeke narrowed his eyes a little. “Blaine. You do know that I don’t really have one, right?”

Blaine had not, in fact, known anything of the sort. And that was pretty insane, right? Whatever the explanation for that was, it didn’t seem like it was something small. He and Zeke might not have been in a relationship, but they’d been seeing each other casually for more than two months. This really seemed like something Blaine should have known after that much time. “What do you mean?” he finally asked.

Before Blaine really knew what was happening, Zeke was out of bed and rifling through the pile of clothes on the floor. Blaine sat up and stared at him while he tried to figure out what on earth was happening. “Wait, what are you doing? Please don’t leave.” Blaine was surprised to find that his voice sounded young and small when he spoke.

Zeke looked back up at him. “I’m not going anywhere. I just …” He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up further. “I’d rather not have this conversation naked. Is that weird? That’s probably weird.”

“We could compromise, and you could borrow pajamas?” Blaine said. He couldn’t help but smile a little because Zeke was _rambling_. Blaine hadn’t even known that was possible. It was actually really cute, although Blaine should be concentrating on more important things.

“Do you want some, too?” Zeke said, as he rifled through Blaine’s drawer. Blaine nodded, and a moment later a pair of polka-dotted pajama pants went flying by his head. By the time Blaine had put them on, Zeke was sitting at the top of the bed with his back against the wall, wearing pajama pants and an old bat man t-shirt.

Blaine climbed onto the bed and sat along the side with his back against the other wall. He stretched his legs out so that they tangled with Zeke’s, for which he was granted a small smile. He didn’t know exactly why, but he felt like he needed to be touching Zeke for this. Maybe it was just the fact that Zeke looked so afraid.

“It’s not a nice story,” Zeke said, once they were both settled. “I don’t have to tell it.”

“If you don’t want to tell it, you don’t have to,” Blaine replied, but honestly he’d probably die of curiosity if that happened. “But I’d like to hear it if you’re willing.”

Zeke nodded and took a deep breath. “My family is … traditional, I guess. My parents got married pretty young, and I’ve got two brothers who are quite a bit younger than me. In April of my junior year of high school, my father found out about the whole,” Zeke waved his arm at Blaine slightly, “gay thing. It was an accident. He wasn’t supposed to be home, and I was on the phone with Brandon, and he overheard … well, he overheard enough.”

For just a moment, Blaine wanted to tell Zeke to stop. It was a crazy impulse because it wasn’t that Blaine didn’t want to know; it was that he felt like he could tell what was coming, and he just wanted to make it not be true. But it would be true whether Blaine knew about it or not, so he just nodded to Zeke and waited for him to continue.

“My dad’s really religious—you know the type—and his plan was to drag me out of the house and take me to church. I’m not even sure he knew what that was supposed to do. But my mom got home with my brothers before he got anywhere, and she … she’s the strong-willed one in the family.” Zeke stopped for a minute then and stared at his hands. Blaine just let him take whatever time he needed. “She started screaming at me, mostly in Greek, that I was … the usual things. But also that she wasn’t going to have me around my brothers to ‘corrupt them’ or whatever. I don’t remember exactly. But then she told my dad that if he didn’t kick me out she’d take the kids and move in with her parents. And my mom would do it, too. You don’t know her without knowing that she’d do it. So he did.”

Blaine closed his eyes for a moment and rested his head back against the wall. Zeke seemed like he needed a break from telling the story, which was okay because Blaine needed a break from listening. Blaine had learned his senior year that it was possible for his heart to actually feel like it was hurting if things were bad enough. He’d never expected to have that feeling about anyone other than Kurt, but he was feeling it now. It felt like someone had kicked him in the chest; it was hard to breathe around it.

Blaine knew he’d probably been sitting there for too long. Zeke had probably been expecting some sort of reaction that didn’t involve Blaine pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes and trying to catch his breath. The problem was that Blaine didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t help the urge to hold on to Zeke in order to ward off everything that it was far too late for anyone to protect him from. If Blaine was being honest, he probably would have included himself in that list: the college boy who appeared and disappeared at random, who never asked any important questions, who had been too wrapped up in all of his own pain to even wonder about the boy in his arms.

But then, Blaine supposed, that was weird, too. Because he’d thought he and Zeke were just passing time, but if Zeke really didn’t mean anything to him then shouldn’t finding this out hurt less?

Zeke was unreasonably quiet and still beside him, and Blaine knew it was probably far past time when he needed to say something, but he didn’t know what to say to everything Zeke had told him, so he went with something innocuous.

When Blaine opened his eyes, Zeke was watching him, but he didn’t seem especially unnerved. “Screaming in Greek?” Blaine said.

Zeke cracked a smile, and for once Blaine could guess what he was thinking: probably that Blaine had spent all of that time visibly freaking out, and then all he’d asked about was Zeke’s heritage. Not that Blaine hadn’t guessed that some part of his family was Greek; Michelakos was a pretty obvious last name. “We really haven’t talked about _anything_ , have we?” Zeke asked. “My mother was born in Volos, and my father is first generation. Greek was actually my first language.” Blaine raised an eyebrow at him. “Before you ask, no, I’m not any more articulate in Greek.”

Blaine laughed, and Zeke smiled, which helped lessen the tension a little, but then Zeke pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. Blaine had a feeling that Zeke wasn’t really trying pull away, but he wished that Zeke felt a little less closed off to him. He also thought that maybe, after the last couple of months, he didn’t deserve to wish that. “It didn’t used to be _so much_ ,” Zeke said, and at first Blaine didn’t know what he meant. That was fairly common in conversations with Zeke. He didn’t always say things in a way that was easy to follow. “Brandon says I ‘clammed up.’”

“You’re doing pretty well now,” Blaine said. He meant it, too. Zeke didn’t really make speeches, even when he answered questions in class, and that had been a long one.

Zeke responded by burying his face in his knees, and this time Blaine couldn’t resist the impulse to reach out for him. He crawled up the bed and settled himself next to Zeke at the top. When Zeke didn’t protest, Blaine slowly slipped an arm around him and rested his chin on Zeke’s shoulder. After a few minutes, Zeke shifted and turned his head so he could look at Blaine with damp eyes. “Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry, please,” Blaine said. “Do you want to finish some other time?”

“No, I should do it now.” Zeke sat up, and the two of them shifted until Zeke was sitting curled into Blaine with Blaine’s arm still around him. Once they were settled, Zeke took another deep breath and then started again. “My dad’s compromise was that he let me pack up my stuff and take my car. So I sort of … lived in my car for a week or so.” And there was that kicked in the chest feeling again. “Then Brandon and his mom figured out what was going on, and his parents insisted that I move in with their family, so I lived with them for the last few months of junior year and all of senior year. And his dad helped me out with getting legally emancipated and everything.”

Blaine had the sudden desire to bake Brandon and his family a cake, although he really didn’t have any right to thank _them_ for taking care of Zeke. Blaine tried to imagine what it would have been like for his mother to turn on him like that and for his father to let her. He’d had his share of communication issues with his parents, and he hadn’t realized until about a year earlier that his dad really wasn’t hoping Blaine would become straight. He was just trying to find common ground and wasn’t very good at it. But Blaine had no idea what he would have done if he’d been in Zeke’s position. He couldn’t shake the mental image of tiny, easily startled Zeke sleeping in the trunk of his station wagon. It must have been absolute hell, especially since he’d been hiding it from everyone. Blaine tightened his arms around Zeke as he tried to stop thinking about it.

Zeke seemed pretty content just to sit with his head on Blaine’s chest and let Blaine sort through it all. It occurred to Blaine that he really didn’t deserve the amount of trust Zeke had given him tonight. He hadn’t really been treating Zeke like a person over the last couple of months; he’d been acting like this whole thing was a distraction: something to get his mind off of Kurt. He realized now that even if Zeke had had the easiest life in the world, it still wouldn’t have been fair of Blaine to treat him like that. Everything Zeke had been through only made it worse.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t paying enough attention to you to even know that I need to ask you about this stuff.”

Zeke pulled out of Blaine’s arms to sit cross legged, looking at him. “It’s fine,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve always known you aren’t really in this.”

Blaine felt a little nauseated at that. Of course, Zeke was right. Blaine hadn’t wanted anything like a relationship, and he really hadn’t made a secret of it. But now he had a feeling that he’d gotten it all wrong.

Now that he was listening, Blaine could hear the other meaning under Zeke’s words. “If you’re saying I haven’t been in this, does that mean you have been?” he asked and tried not to be afraid of the answer.

“It was an accident,” Zeke answered.

Knowing that this mattered to Zeke helped Blaine make his decision. He sat up to face Zeke and reached out to take his hand. Zeke looked down at their joined hands with more than a little surprise. “I know I’ve been pretty terrible these last few months, and I know I really don’t deserve to ask you for anything at this point, but if you think you might be able to forgive me, I’d like the chance to give this a real shot.”

Zeke just sighed and gave him a vaguely disappointed look. “I’m not a wounded baby bird, Blaine. I don’t need rescuing, and there’s nothing you need to atone for.”

Blaine probably should have expected that reaction. “I promise you, it isn’t any of that. I wouldn’t do that to you. This isn’t about you deserving better from me, although you do. This is about me hoping that I didn’t screw up something that could be great by taking so long to figure it out. I promise I’m better at the whole boyfriend thing than I have been at the whole … whatever this was.”

“I think it’s called a rebound,” Zeke answered, giving him a pointed look. “Wait. Did you just say you wanted to be my boyfriend?”

Finally Blaine smiled. “Yes, that’s pretty much what I was going for.”

“Huh,” Zeke said, and then looked down at their joined hands and back up at Blaine. “I really didn’t see that coming.” Blaine just raised his eyebrows at Zeke in an obvious question. “Oh, well I mean yes. If you’re sure.”

Instead of answering, Blaine leaned in and kissed Zeke. It started off soft and sweet, but it wasn’t long before Zeke was in Blaine’s lap and Blaine was pulling his batman t-shirt back over his boyfriend’s head. This time, the only thing he focused on was Zeke.

* * *

 

In the morning, Zeke had plans to meet up with his group to work on his final project for Introduction to Cinema. He and Blaine made plans for dinner, and then Blaine was left alone in his room.

Once Zeke was gone, Blaine flopped back on his bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, trying to put everything that had happened the night before and everything that he now understood about the last few months into place.

Finally he gave up on his attempt to figure it all out on his own and jumped on the computer to Skype Sam

As soon as Sam answered, Blaine said, “I’m a huge jerk, and I’m pretty sure I very nearly made a mess of everything.”

Sam was quiet while Blaine explained everything from the beginning. He didn’t have to explain what things had been like with Zeke up until then, because Sam already knew that part. Blaine could feel himself getting more and more hysterical as the story went on, but he couldn’t calm himself down.

When he finally got to the end, Sam was silent for a minute. Then he said, “Okay, first of all, breathe.” Blaine did as he was told and waited for the rest of Sam’s opinion. “So I hate to tell you this, buddy, but you nearly fucking everything up before you realize how you feel about a guy is not news.”

“Thanks, Sam,” he said. Sam wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t particularly helpful.

“Just calling it like I see it. But that’s not really the point. I know you think all of this is your fault, but you always do.”

Sam was also right about that, but in Blaine’s defense, this time it really was his fault. “I don’t see how it wouldn’t be. I wasn’t paying attention. I just decided what I needed and went with it without ever thinking about how he felt about it, and he got hurt.”

“All true,” Sam said with a nod. “But was he trying to tell you any of this?”

That gave Blaine pause. Because it was true that Blaine hadn’t learned to read Zeke at all and true that he hadn’t been trying to figure out what Zeke really thought about the whole thing, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t ever ignored Zeke when he wanted to talk, which was something like never. “I don’t think he would have told me any of it if I hadn’t asked directly. He’s not … I guess you could say talking isn’t his thing.”

Sam laughed. “The idea of you dating a quiet guy is kind of hilarious.”

It was true enough. Blaine had never imagined being with someone who wasn’t fighting for attention the same way all of his friends at McKinley had been, but he really did like being around Zeke, for all he hadn’t quite figured out what to do with the silences. Still, he was starting to understand what Sam meant: it was one thing to not be very talkative; it was another thing to be silent even when you needed to speak up for yourself. Although Blaine had some experience with how that could happen. “I might never be sure that he’s going to tell me what he needs, huh?”

“It’s something to think about, as far as how you’re going handle this whole thing,” Sam said with a nod.

It certainly was. Blaine had a lot of thinking to do about how they were going to make this relationship work. Although he had a feeling that just paying attention would help him understand Zeke a lot better. Sam was more right than he even knew. There were a lot of things that made Blaine and Zeke sort of an odd couple. Blaine was just hoping that it would work in their favor.

After he hung up with Sam, Blaine spent some time thinking about how he’d talk to Zeke about all of this, because they were going to have to talk about it. He wanted to know what he needed to be aware of before he hurt Zeke again, and there were things that Zeke should know about Blaine, too.

Blaine started the conversation over dinner that night. It was one of the more weirdly grown up nights of his life. They talked about more than just the communication issue. It was Zeke who volunteered that they would need to figure out how Blaine could keep being Blaine without directing too much unwanted attention at Zeke. They both agreed that they might have to figure that one out by trial and error. By the end of the evening, Blaine felt much better, and he could tell that Zeke did, too. For all that they’d agreed to be boyfriends the night before, it wasn’t until then that it felt like they really were changing things.

Over the next few weeks, Blaine took advantage of the fact that Zeke was better at answering direct questions to start filling in all the things that they didn’t know about each other. Blaine started most of their conversations by asking something random and personal.

Blaine also told Zeke everything he’d never mentioned before about his past. They talked about Sadie Hawkins, Dalton, Kurt, Eli, Kurt again, and the choice that had lead Blaine to California instead of New York. It was times like these that he really appreciated Zeke’s quiet, non-judgmental listening and his willingness to hold on as tightly as Blaine needed.

About two weeks in to the new version of their relationship, Blaine had finally met Zeke’s best friend. Brandon had looked Blaine up and down consideringly and then waited for Zeke to be out of hearing range before he said, “Do not fuck this up again or I will hurt you. This is your only second chance. He’s had enough people in his life who treat him like he’s disposable.”

Blaine had just replied with, “I know, Brandon. I really do.” And they’d gotten along well after that.

They were in the dining hall for dinner in early December when Blaine pulled out one of his long list of things he didn’t know about Zeke. “What was your first time like?” he asked.

Zeke just blinked his eyes at Blaine for a moment and then started laughing, eventually burying his face in his hands. Finally he came up for air and said, “Blaine, really?”

Blaine still didn’t get the joke. “Do you want me to ask this question sometime when we’re not in a dining hall?”

Zeke just waved his hand in a gesture that Blaine had learned meant something like “it doesn’t matter.” “Blaine. You know what my first time was like. You were there.”

Blaine took a deep breath, crossed his arms, and then turned to stare out the window. He had been hoping that he’d run out of new ways that he’d messed things up in those first months, but apparently not. It wasn’t just that he hadn’t known at the time, but he’d never figured it out after. Blaine flashed back to his own first time with Kurt. For everything that had happened before or after, that night had been perfect and romantic, and he had been so in love. It seemed unfair that Zeke’s had been a random hookup with a guy he’d met at orientation and who’d never expected to see him again after breakfast the next morning. There had certainly not been anything special about that night.

Blaine didn’t see Zeke move, so he was startled when he felt someone tap on his arm and turned away from the window to find that Zeke was sitting next to him on his side of the booth. Zeke slowly pried Blaine’s right hand away from his left arm until Blaine gave up, uncrossed his arms and let Zeke hold his hand. Once that was done, Zeke brought his free hand up to cup Blaine’s cheek and leaned in for a soft kiss. Blaine kissed him back, trying to fight the thought that he really didn’t deserve this.

When Zeke pulled back, he said, “Can I interrupt this trip on the Blaine Anderson guilt train, please?”

Blaine shrugged in response, which Zeke took as a yes. “I know you had the perfect teen romance first time, Blaine. But if that had been what I was looking for, I wouldn’t have gone home with the cute boy who flirted with me during orientation.”

Blaine nodded, because Zeke had a point, but it still seemed like it should have been a bigger deal. “Yeah, but I should have asked. Or I should have told you that I—”

"Blaine, you have another guy's engagement ring in your sock drawer,” Zeke said, cutting him off. “What did you think you needed to tell me that I didn’t know?”

“I'm going to fix that,” Blaine said. He didn’t wonder how Zeke knew about the ring. It wasn’t really hidden, and Zeke’s feet got cold easily. When Blaine had come to LA, he hadn’t been able to face the idea of leaving the ring behind. But these days having it with him was starting to feel really weird.

Zeke rolled his eyes. "I know. The point is that I thought it wouldn’t mean anything to me. I was wrong, and I fell for you, but it was never because you weren't clear. So that’s on me, not you.”

Blaine sighed and shook himself, trying to let the tension drain from his body. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“We’re happy, right?” Zeke said, looking just a little nervous at the question.

“Of course,” Blaine said, squeezing Zeke’s hand.

Zeke smiled at him. “Then stop worrying so much.”

Blaine leaned in and kissed Zeke again before letting his boyfriend untangle from him and go back to the other side of the table. Zeke went back to eating while Blaine considered that night in late August and thought it through now that he knew it had been Zeke’s first time. “Wait. That was really your first time?” he said, interrupting Zeke in the middle of a slice of pizza. When Zeke nodded and put the pizza down, Blaine said, “That’s _really_ impressive. Like … wow.”

In response, Zeke threw his head back and laughed. This particular laugh was pretty much Blaine’s favorite thing in the world at the moment. It was so open and happy, and it had only showed up a few weeks ago along with a strong dose of silliness that Blaine hadn’t known Zeke was hiding.

When Zeke was done laughing, Blaine said, “This is going to work, you know.”

Zeke raised his eyebrows at Blaine. “Are you saying that because it turns out I’m naturally talented at blowjobs?”

“No, although I don’t hate that. It’s just something I’ve been realizing,” he said, linking his hand with Zeke’s across the table.

“I’m in favor,” Zeke said, gesturing between the two of them so Blaine would know what exactly he was in favor of.

Blaine took a deep breath and squeezed Zeke’s hand. “Good. Because there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you …”

“I’m not marrying you.”

“Oh, sure. You barely speak for months, and now that I have something important to say, you’ve got a comment for everything,” Blaine said, pouting a little at Zeke. Zeke made a lip-zipping motion in response, so Blaine continued. “I was thinking you might come home with me for Christmas. My family has all these frequent flyer miles, so it doesn’t cost us anything. My parents are really nice, and my friends are … well, my friends are ridiculous, but we can ditch them.”

By this point, Zeke’s eyebrows had practically disappeared into his hairline. “What are you thinking?” Blaine asked.

“I’m still not a wounded baby bird, you know,” Zeke said with a shrug.

Blaine had been expecting that reaction this time. “I know you’re not. And this isn’t about that. I’m not going to be mad or anything if you want to stay here. I just thought that, if you didn’t, there was no reason you shouldn’t come to Ohio and be with me instead.”

Zeke sighed and rested his chin on his free hand. After about a minute of looking at Blaine, he said, “I _really_ don’t want to stay on campus alone for a month.”

“So you’ll come with me?” Blaine said, starting to get excited. He knew that Zeke meeting his friends was going to be rough in a lot of ways, but he was still happy it was happening.

“I’ll come with you. But this is going to be one of those negotiation things we do,” Zeke said, with a smile. “And I’m not staying in your room.” That seemed fair. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share a room in his parents’ house either at this point. And Blaine was perfectly happy to negotiate with Zeke. It was generally about what Zeke could and couldn’t handle, and Zeke was probably right to guess that the New Directions, if left alone, would run right over all of his carefully constructed boundaries. But he and Blaine would make it work.

* * *

 

Blaine and Zeke flew home on December 19th. For the first couple of days, they just hung around with Blaine’s parents and with Sam. Sam had met Zeke over Skype already, and the two of them got along in ways that Blaine completely didn’t understand.

On the 22nd, Blaine threw a party for everyone that had been in New Directions with him. They’d all come home this year, which was sort of a surprise, and they were all happy to show up at Blaine’s house. Blaine knew that it was going to be tricky because of Zeke. No one would have expected him to come home for his first Christmas and bring a boyfriend with him. These sorts of things usually took time, but Blaine didn’t really want to share Zeke’s life story with everyone on earth in order to explain his presence.

It had been Zeke himself who had decided that Blaine had to tell Kurt the truth, or at least as much of the truth as he needed to in order to make sure that Kurt knew Blaine hadn’t really moved on that fast. It was sort of weird for Blaine to have his current boyfriend worrying about him being fair to his ex-boyfriend, but it was a good weird.

The party was already in full swing and had everyone had commenced with examining Zeke like he was a specimen under glass by the time Kurt and Rachel showed up. Blaine had wanted to tell them all to give it a rest, but Zeke had said he was still fine, so he’d let it go for the time being.

Blaine was standing across the room holding a glass of (as yet un-spiked) punch and watching Puck explain something to Zeke that sounded suspiciously like instructions on how to get college girls to go topless. Zeke looked a little terrified, but he hadn’t started shooting “help me” looks at Blaine yet.

Just then, Blaine felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Kurt standing next to him, looking impeccable as always. “Want to have that talk you promised me?” Kurt said, a little wryly. Blaine didn’t, not really. But he knew they were going to have to talk at some point, so he crossed the room to whisper where he was going in Zeke’s ear and then followed Kurt out into the front yard.

“So,” Kurt said, once they were outside leaning awkwardly on Finn’s car. “Your text just said that you were bringing your boyfriend home, but that I should let you explain.”

“Right,” Blaine said, trying to figure out how to start. “It’s just that I didn’t want you to think—and, actually, Zeke didn’t want you to think—that I moved on just like that. It hasn’t been an easy semester for me, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

Blaine could read the judgement on Kurt’s face. “And yet you still brought your boyfriend home with you for Christmas, so…”

“I know. But to explain that, I have to explain things about Zeke that I didn’t think it was fair to tell everyone.” Kurt nodded, so Blaine continued. “You know the worst case scenario you imagined when you thought about coming out?”

“I’m pretty sure it involved my father kicking me out and me becoming homeless and eventually having to sell organs for money.”

Blaine tilted his head back against the side of the car for a moment and then looked back at Kurt. “Mine was pretty much the same. Except I think I had to play the piano on street corners.”

“How would you have gotten a piano to a street corner?” Kurt said, with a laugh.

“I have no idea. I was twelve,” Blaine said, smiling back, but then he sobered. “The point is that, for Zeke, the nightmare scenario came true. I mean, not the selling body parts thing. But his parents freaked out and kicked him out, and he spent the next year and half living with his friend. He hasn’t seen his family since.”

Kurt looked stunned for a moment and then closed his eyes. “It’s weird when you realize that, even with all the shit we went through, we got lucky.”

Blaine nodded. He hated that the world was screwed up enough that kids like them still had to be grateful that their parents loved them at all, but it was true. “So if he hadn’t come here, he would have stayed at USC alone for four weeks.”

Kurt sighed. “Yeah, you couldn’t let that happen.”  

Blaine shook his head in response and looked back up at the house. He hoped his friends hadn’t done anything insane while he was outside.

“Are you in love with him?” Kurt asked, interrupting Blaine’s thoughts.

“No. It’s too soon. It’s really only been a month and a half since I figured myself out,” he replied. It was true: Blaine couldn’t have said that he was in love yet. But when he thought about all the time he’d spent with Zeke, he knew that there was more to it than that. “I do get closer every day, though,” he said, deciding to go with honesty.

“You always were incredibly slow,” Kurt replied.

Blaine flinched a little bit. Kurt wasn’t wrong, of course, but Blaine wasn’t proud of it in either case. “We should go back inside,” he said. “You’re probably freezing.” He needed to be done with this conversation.

Kurt reached out and grabbed Blaine’s arm when he started to walk away. “Blaine?” Then he waited until Blaine turned back to look at him. “I’m really not angry at you. I guess I’m just a little upset that I can’t be angry, as fucked up as that sounds.”

Blaine exhaled. “I don’t know. I think I get it.” If their positions were reversed, Blaine would probably have wanted to be angry, too. A little righteous indignation was always comforting, especially for Kurt.

“You’re still one of my best friends. It’s probably going to take time for everything to settle down, but I’m not giving that up.”

“Neither am I,” Blaine said, reaching out to pull Kurt into a hug.

When they got back into the living room, Blaine scanned the crowd and realized pretty quickly that Zeke was missing. He sighed, wondering what exactly his friends had done this time, and tried to decide where he should look. His first thought was Zeke’s room, but he was sort of hoping Zeke had just needed a break and hadn’t actually run away. In that case, somewhere on the ground floor was more likely.

As Blaine was walking down the hall, he heard voices coming from the heated back porch. When he pushed open the door, he found Zeke and Sam sitting next to each other on the porch swing, sharing a bottle of craft beer.

Blaine leaned up against the door for a second and enjoyed watching the two of them together. Then Zeke looked up and saw him. He smiled and waved Blaine over, so Blaine went to sit on Zeke’s other side on the swing. “What are you two doing out here?” he asked.

“I’m trying to see if your boyfriend gets any more chatty when he’s drunk,” Sam replied, passing the beer back to Zeke.

“Not usually. And definitely not from half a bottle of overpriced beer,” Blaine replied, pushing off the floor with his foot so that they started swinging. “Did they drive you away?” he asked.

Zeke passed the bottle off to Blaine and shook his head. “Not exactly. It’s just that they’re a little much.”

Sam and Blaine both laughed at that. “That’s one way to put it,” Sam said, taking the beer back and taking another sip.

“I think I confuse them,” Zeke explained, and then he leaned into Blaine. “I’m not … I think people expected something … more.”

Blaine shifted so that he could wrap his arm around Zeke’s shoulder. “You’re probably not what they expected,” Blaine said, shrugging a little. “You’re not what I expected, either. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not enough.” He was probably squeezing Zeke’s shoulder a little too hard, but he couldn’t help feeling like he needed Zeke to understand him.

Zeke turned his head so that he could meet Blaine’s eyes. “I’m working on remembering,” he said, and then leaned in to kiss Blaine. They were interrupted a minute later by Sam slurping on the beer bottle.

“Sorry, Sam,” Blaine said, laughing and disentangling from Zeke.

Zeke pulled the beer bottle out of Sam’s hands. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Hey, I don’t want to mess up your moment or whatever. I just didn’t want things to start getting handsy.”

Zeke nodded and handed the beer off to Blaine, who finished the bottle. After a minute or two of silence, Zeke said, “Oh! I forgot. The hot, scary one seems to have decided that my name is ‘rebound boy.’”

Blaine buried his face in his hands. Zeke had to be talking about Santana. Blaine would have to remember to tell her off when Zeke wasn’t around.

“And the blonde girl asked me how I could do magic if I couldn’t sing.”

“Must have been Brittany,” Sam said with a fond smile. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her I couldn’t,” Zeke replied with a shrug. “She seemed really sad about it.  

Just then, Blaine heard the door swing open behind them, and Tina said, “Is this a private party, or can anyone join?”

“There’s always room for you, Tay Tay,” Blaine said. He knew that Tina was feeling a bit left out lately with Sam and Zeke having bonded, so he jumped up to pull the wicker loveseat over for her and joined her on it.

The four of them would probably have to go back inside in a few minutes, but right now Blaine was pretty content out on his porch with three of his favorite people.

* * *

 

When Sam suggested planning a giant snowball fight in January, Blaine jumped on it and called everyone to tell them to meet him in the park the next day.

After that was done, he found Zeke in his room sitting on his bed with a sketchpad in his lap, so Blaine flopped down on his back next to Zeke. “What are you drawing?”

“I not drawing,” he answered with a smile.

“Okay, fine. Sketching, storyboarding, that thing that you do with your hands when you get bored …” Zeke raised his eyebrows at Blaine. “Not _that_ thing you do with your hands when you get bored!” Blaine said laughing.

“Just a video idea that’s in my head,” Zeke said, finally answering the question. “What are you up to?”

“Planning a New Directions snowball fight for tomorrow.”

Zeke had apparently reached a stopping point, because he closed the sketchpad, set it on the floor, and then slid down the bed so he could lie on his side facing Blaine. The whole motion caused his Star Wars t-shirt to ride up a few inches, so Blaine rested his hand on Zeke’s hip and ran his thumb over the exposed skin. Zeke reached up between them to play with Blaine’s bowtie, although he didn’t seem to be working on untying it. Finally he met Blaine’s eyes and smiled at him. “Is this your way of telling me that your mother isn’t home?”

Blaine laughed. That hadn’t exactly been his intention, but it was true that she wasn’t home. Making use of that fact seemed like a good idea. “If you feel like it,” he said and then leaned in for a kiss. Zeke responded eagerly, pressing closer and slipping his tongue into Blaine’s mouth. After a minute, Blaine flipped them so he could hover over his boyfriend.

Zeke grinned up at him and said, “For the record, I always feel like it.” But his laugh turned into a gasp as Blaine leaned in to kiss down his neck.

Later, Blaine lay with his head on Zeke’s stomach while Zeke ran a hand over his hair idly. Blaine was just considering the possibility that they needed to get dressed when Zeke said, “You’re going to have to re-gel before your mother gets back.”

Blaine shifted to rest his chin on Zeke’s chest and look up at him. “Yeah, and whose fault is that?”

“Oops,” Zeke said with a giggle, but he didn’t look sorry at all. After another minute, he said, “Do you mind if I don’t go with you tomorrow?”

That was worrying. Apparently they needed to have a discussion. Blaine pulled himself off Zeke so that he could sit cross legged next to his boyfriend.

Rather than sitting up himself, Zeke just looked Blaine up and down and then giggled again. “You are _so_ naked right now.”

Blaine glared at him and grabbed a pillow to cover himself. “Yes, and my being naked is so new for you that we can’t have a conversation because of it?”

Zeke pulled himself up with a sigh, keeping the blanket over his lap. “What are we having a conversation about?”

“Well, you said you wanted to not go tomorrow. I thought maybe you were upset about something …”

“No, Blaine, I’m not upset. It’s just a lot of people, and I get tired,” he replied, taking Blaine’s hand and squeezing it.

Blaine nodded and squeezed back. “Do you want me to stay home with you?”

Zeke shook his head emphatically. “I’ll be happier if you don’t, really.”

It was hard for Blaine to remember sometimes that Zeke was a lot more content being alone than he was. Blaine would have felt left out if their positions were reversed, but Zeke would probably just be relieved.

When Blaine came home from their three-hour snowball fight the next day, he was drenched through so he stood in the doorway and removed as many layers as he thought was decent. He followed the smell of food into the kitchen and found Zeke laughing with his mother as they assembled a pan of baklava. Zeke saw him first and shot a bright smile at him. When his mother turned around, she just said, “Blaine, you’re dripping on the floor. Go put on something dry.”

Blaine hurried up the stairs, and when he shut the door he leaned back against it for a moment to enjoy the memory of his boyfriend teaching Blaine’s mother to cook something Zeke’s mother had probably taught him. He knew that it was probably a little bittersweet, but Zeke hadn’t looked like he had any reservations. Blaine couldn’t help but think that it felt like they were becoming family, even if it was early. It was another one of those moments when Blaine knew it was going to work.

* * *

 

On the last Saturday in March, the temperature in LA hit eighty for the first time that spring. Blaine and Zeke spent the day on the quad with most of the rest of the school. By the end of the day, the two of them were cuddled up on the grass waiting for the sun to set. Blaine was sitting between Zeke’s legs with his head leaned back against Zeke’s shoulder while Zeke rested his back against a tree and played with a flower he’d pulled from the grass.

They’d been sitting quietly for nearly half an hour, both lost in thought, when Zeke broke the silence. “You were really great today.”

Earlier in the day, one of the groups that Blaine was in had done a performance on the quad. Blaine had gotten to sing lead on “[Can’t Take My Eyes Off You](http://musicofmakemehappy.tumblr.com/post/101883065461/cant-take-my-eyes-off-of-you-performed-by-john)” and Zeke had been there to watch. “I kind of wanted to sing it to you,” he said. “But I figured I shouldn’t.” They were still sort of working out the limits of Blaine’s romantic gestures. In private, Blaine was allowed to do whatever he wanted. It was just the public stuff that was still under negotiation.

Blaine felt Zeke shrug behind him. “You probably could have.”

“Really?” Blaine twisted himself around a bit awkwardly so that he could look at his boyfriend.

“I think so. When you sing, no one’s looking at me,” Zeke said and then ran the flower he’d been playing with across Blaine’s cheek. “As long as you don’t pull me into any numbers or onto any furniture, I think it’s okay.”

Blaine grinned and pulled the flower out of Zeke’s hand so that he could hit Zeke on the nose. Zeke screwed up his face and gave Blaine a look that clearly said that he wasn’t sure why he was dating such a dork. “So as long as you get to stay seated, I can serenade you whenever I want?”

“Yes, I suppose you can.”

Blaine shot Zeke a flirty look and then began to [sing](http://musicofmakemehappy.tumblr.com/post/101883171851/imagine-dragons-demons): “ _When the days are cold and the cards all fold and the saints we see are all made of gold, when your dreams all fail and the ones we hail are the worst of all and the blood’s run stale, I wanna hide the truth, I wanna shelter you, but with the beast inside there’s nowhere we can hide._ ”

Then Blaine was cut off by Zeke’s hand over his mouth. “I keep telling you that’s not our song!”

Blaine pulled Zeke’s hand away. “But it’s the first song I ever sang for you. Why wouldn’t it be our song?” On their third real date, Blaine and Zeke had gone to a pizza place that had turned out to be having Karaoke. Blaine was incapable of resisting Karaoke, so he’d gone up and sang “Demons.” It had been a good night. It had ended with Zeke taking Blaine back to his dorm and telling Blaine to pretend this was the first time he was putting out, while pulling Blaine’s pants off. Blaine had very fond memories.

“Blaine Anderson, if we’re going to have a song, it’s going to have to be a love song,” Zeke said and then seemed to process what he’d just said. He bit his lip as he looked at Blaine.

Blaine couldn’t help but feel giddy at the implication. “Is there something you want to tell me, Ezekiel Michelakos?”

Zeke rolled his eyes at the use of his full name, but he shifted nervously instead of answering, so Blaine put him out of his misery. He leaned in for a kiss, draping his legs over Zeke’s to make the angle less awkward. Zeke wrapped his arms around Blaine’s waist and pulled him closer. When they pulled back, Blaine brushed Zeke’s hair out of his eyes and said, “I love you.”

Blaine had thought that it wasn’t a very well kept secret, but Zeke’s eyes still widened when he spoke. “Really?” Zeke said, looking happy if a little stunned.

“Of course really,” Blaine said, laughing a little at Zeke’s surprise. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“I didn’t want to assume.” Zeke replied, and then looked at Blaine with a shy smile. “I love you, too.”

Blaine grinned and then leaned in to kiss him again. After a minute, Blaine broke the kiss and settled into Zeke’s arms to watch the sun set. As the sky turned orange and purple, Blaine began [to sing](http://musicofmakemehappy.tumblr.com/post/101883384806/feels-like-home-performed-by-bonnie-raitt) softly again. “ _Something in your eyes makes me want to lose myself, makes me want to lose myself in your arms. There’s something in your voice makes my heart beat fast. Hope this feeling lasts the rest of my life._ ”

Zeke squeezed him tighter and pressed a kiss to Blaine’s temple. “Sounds good to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just to tie things all together, the snowball fight that Blaine and Sam plan in this fic is the [snowball fight](http://iaminarage.tumblr.com/post/72703707548/rynique-drabble) in the Takes The Greatest While 'verse.


End file.
